Slave For Him |M.B|

Chapter 23: V

April 1947

"I have this gift. I can see things and I know things. I can see how good or bad someone is. I have this instinct that's always right." I attempted to explain further but it sounded crazy. "–I got it from my Grandmother and she got it from her mother and so on and so forth. I knew what you and Danny were before you ever told me but I didn't know what I had become." I uttered the story and excuses lowly. Matt tilted his head slightly.

"What do you mean you didn't know what you had become?" He questioned sincerely. I pursed my lips and looked up to meet his eyes again, trying not to look at the creature reflecting in them. I've always been enticed by his eyes, they're so beautiful but cold. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul and his eyes perfectly reflect what his soul is like; beautiful and deep but cold and distant.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." I quoted an Oxford professor that visited my School one day to substitute for my English literature teacher who was away sick. I learned not too long later that he actually quoted a man named Edmund Burke.

I swallowed down hard and let go of the breath I didn't realize I was holding.

"Standing aside and letting the darkness in you grow for my own selfish reasons, loving you, protecting you, killing for you, keeping this secret; it's let the evil thrive in me. Darkness has completely consumed me and I've become a monster, the monster Danny wants me to be,"

"–Wait. Hold on a second. Did Danny tell you this? Did he put the idea of you being a monster in your head?" Matt cut me off abruptly. I sheepishly nodded. Matt groaned loudly and closed his eyes. When he opened them again he turned to face me with his entire body, he reached out and grabbed hold of my hands and held them in his gingerly.

"Eliese, you are not some kind of monster. Danny was just trying to make you feel bad about what happened to me. Everybody was scared and on edge, and running on fumes. He needed someone to blame so he blamed you. And you felt guilty so you believed what he said." Matt logically explained what he believed to have happened but it didn't make me feel better. I knew the truth and the truth is evil has triumphed because I did nothing.

"Did you know Danny had a little brother?" I spat out harshly. I was surprised by the words that fled my mouth. I didn't know if I was trying to banish the evil in me or exploiting it? But Danny wanted a monster so a monster is what he'll get.

"What?" Matt whimpered softly with a baffled look on his face. I looked him sternly in the face, not backing down from my statement. Matt stared at me wide eyed for a long minute.

"Danny had a little brother, Sky. Sky was brutally beaten and murdered, and his body was left in the woods. And then every time he moved kids would go missing and turn up murdered, and then his friends would be arrested for it,"

"–'Liese, I swear to God if you tell me that Danny did it, I'm done." Matt snapped jumping up to his feet. His statement made me throw the blanket off of myself and lunge to my feet. Rage filled me as I stood nose to nose with him for the first time in a very long time.

"Matt, please. He told me that you and me are his students. He's grooming us just like he groomed those other kids and then framed them. He's going to set us up and watch us fall." I warned the love of my life of the dangers that his best friend holds.

"Eliese!" Matt yelled angrily. He sounded fed up and completely done with me and this conversation. But I wasn't going to let him win. He needed to see things the way I did.

"Matthew, listen to me!" I shouted at him emotionally.

"No, you listen to me! You don't know Danny the same way I do. He wouldn't do that. He didn't start what we do now until he met me. He told me he wanted to make history with me. He wouldn't have lied about that." Matt stubbornly went on about how he knows better, better than me. How he knows more than me. It made my blood boil. I wanted to yell and scream at him but I didn't. Instead, with my balled-up fists I stomped off to our bedroom, went to our closet and pulled out the box with Danny's notebooks in it. It was almost a struggle to carry the box up the stairs with my four month pregnant belly sticking out. Matt was still in the nursery, pacing and rubbing at the stubble that shadowed his jaw. He looked at me wide eyed as I threw the box on the floor at his feet.